Island Gin Meets Four Pillars for Creative Collaboration
In a huge win for Island Gin, the Four Pillars Distiller Series comes to Great Barrier Island for an off-grid immersive collaboration between trailblazing distillers Andi Ross and Sarah Prowse.
A landmark collaboration between a global gin giant and a small, off-grid island producer, united by a shared spirit of creativity and craftsmanship. This is the story of Australia’s Four Pillars and New Zealand’s Island Gin, the sixth instalment in the Four Pillars Distiller Series and the first to feature two female distillers and a New Zealand brand. The partnership is led by two trailblazers: Andi Ross, founder of Island Gin on Great Barrier Island (Aotea), and Sarah Prowse, head distiller for Four Pillars.
Where Ideals Meet Integrity
The partnership marks two significant milestones: the first time a New Zealand distillery has been included in the Four Pillars Distiller Series, and the first time two female distillers have led the collaboration. For Andi Ross, this collaboration is more than a creative exchange—it's a powerful testament to a journey built on uncompromising ideals.
The Distiller Series is a showcase of Four Pillars' collaborative spirit, having previously teamed up with celebrated distilleries in Sweden, the UK, and Spain. These partnerships are reserved for brands that share a similar passion for innovation and quality. For Four Pillars, a globally recognised distillery that has been crowned International Gin Producer of the Year three times, to choose a small, off-grid producer like Island Gin is a profound endorsement of the New Zealand brand's integrity and unique, handcrafted approach.
This shared ethos was the foundation of the partnership. As Andi Ross noted, "Four Pillars has done an extraordinary job weaving sustainability into a much larger operation. Their work has been recognised globally and it’s not just awards talk... there’s an integrity to how they operate that really resonated with me. It made collaborating feel like more than a creative exchange, it was an alignment of values." For Ross, this commitment is deeply personal. "I still believe that you should be able to have your ideals," she said, reflecting on her own journey, which included taking three years to create a bottle made locally from recycled glass. "Do people care that the bottle’s recycled in New Zealand? Maybe they don't. But I thought, well, it's important to me."
These ideals are a well-known foundation for the distillery, that runs completely off-grid on Aotea (Great Barrier Island) with a commitment to making and keeping as much of the business close to home as possible, from island botanicals to New Zealand-made glass to their soon-to-be first employee on the island.
The Art of Playful Distilling
The collaboration began earlier this year when Sarah Prowse travelled to Great Barrier Island. There, the two distillers worked side by side, immersing themselves in the island’s unique environment. They visited the local beekeeper whose wild Manuka honey has become Island Gin’s signature ingredient, foraged for kelp on the beaches, and experimented with seawater in the distillery.
The process was anything but linear. It was an exercise in creative flexibility and mutual respect. Four Pillars is known for its signature dryness and martini-ability, a genuine component of their house style. So when the two began the process, Andi had a clear vision. "I thought, I really want to make a fantastic martini gin that I don't have in my stable of products," she explained. However, Andi has never been one for pushing square pegs into round holes, and starting with a fixed endpoint was leading in circles.
"You can't go in with a set idea and always get what you want," she reflects. "You’ve just got to go, okay, that's not what I thought it might be, it's not at all. Eventually I realised it wasn’t working and we'll just have to leave it to one side and start again. So then we just completely did a U turn and looked at other things."
The final product was born from an open-ended process of discovery. This creative freedom was a return to Andi’s traditional style of making on the island. "My usual process is seeing what's around, gathering what's around, and something will spark something. It could be a front cover of a book. It could be anything," Ross said.
This hands-on, exploratory approach led them to truly unique ingredients, as they were "riffing on a whole lot of stuff, really. Let's explore the island and work from what’s on the island. Let's look at macadamia trees. Let's go down and see what sort of kelp is here." For Andi, this included working with oranges for the first time, knowing how magically they would work with Manuka honey.
The Makers and the Tastemakers
There’s a sense of play at work here, a throwback to art and advertising masterclasses on creativity and making — which is the essence of what’s happening when you bring two makers together.
“We're all makers, really, I think a lot of distillers are makers, they’re hands on. So, I think when you bring someone into your space, someone like Sarah, you have an opportunity to see how someone else makes and what their process is. You just explore and absorb from each other. And we got along really well in that, I think there were no preconceived ideas.”
Where some recipes might start from the flavour wheel and work outwards, the two distillers leaned into the creative process, immersion in the island and their super-tasting powers. The women had left an impact and effect on one another - Sarah Prowse went harvesting for kelp herself, a kind of hands-on integrity that stands out to Andi, long after their time together. Elements of both women’s experiences have influenced the end result, from Sarah’s winemaking background and palate to the salty, coastal setting of Aotea itself.
“Sarah had thought she wanted to do something different too. But then we worked with the kelp. We worked with seawater, and who knew seawater could be quite interesting in a gin? I had kina, dried and in my fridge. I've got kina that are sitting in spirit. I've got all this stuff. We put that in the pot. We just kept mucking around and playing around with it, so yeah, that’s the creativity–it’s creating and making and learning to be open to whatever happens.”
Two Gins, One Story
The collaboration resulted in two distinct gins, each a reflection of the collaboration. In essence, the Distillers Series is a melting pot of ideas and influence, where each distiller creates a gin back home from those ideas and experiences they’ve gathered.
Wild Isle Gin, Sarah Prowse’s expression, takes the wild, coastal character of Great Barrier Island and reimagines it through an Australian lens. "For Wild Isle Gin, I wanted to create something coastal and savoury, a reflection of Andi’s home," Prowse said. "The brininess of the kelp, the salt, the native botanicals, and always that subtle line of Manuka honey. It’s layered, textured, and deeply connected to place." The gin includes kelp hand-harvested at Kennett River in Victoria, seawater, native botanicals, and Manuka honey from Great Barrier Island. The Australian-distilled gin is packaged in a bottle with unique glow-in-the-dark artwork.
Orange and Manuka Honey Island Gin, Andi Ross’s new release, builds on her globally awarded Island Gin Original. It brings together the softness of Manuka honey with the brightness of New Zealand-grown oranges, inspired by Four Pillars’ famous citrus profile. As Ross explains, "I knew that orange would be the perfect pairing. It adds lift and light but lets the honey shine." This gin is distilled off-grid and bottled in Island Gin's signature Kina shell-inspired vessel, the first spirits bottle made locally from recycled glass.
The Broader Impact: Punching Above Their Weight
For Island Gin, the collaboration is a powerful form of recognition that turns the volume up on their values-led storytelling. Our conversation returns to the bespoke glass bottle that is a significant touchstone in the journey of sustainability, and a point of influence. Island Gin were the first, but Dancing Sands have also followed that path. Ross is frequently fending off enquiries from offshore glass manufacturers offering deeply discounted pricing to win the business but it remains a moot point.
There’s an easy assumption for consumers and industry commentators to make; that when smaller local brands like Four Pillars are purchased by a ‘Big Alcohol’ player such as Lion, their values-driven sustainability models and family style are all vulnerable to the sacrificial altar of commerce. Ross maintains a close friendship with former Four Pillars co-founder Cameron Mackenzie and is quick to offer her experience of working with the team. “They really are still just like a family and in fact, it’s enabled them to do more and invest more in deeply sustainable methods.”
As for how she hopes New Zealanders respond to the Orange & Manuka Honey Gin, it’s a moment for Ross to reflect on the importance of their relationship with their customers, many of whom have a direct relationship with the distillery who still self-distribute to the retailers who seek them out.
"I'd love New Zealand just to go, oh, this is cool," Ross said. "It gives our supporters and our customers a nice kind of halo effect to say that, you know, they've always followed us, and that we have been able to punch above our weight on the world stage, and it affirms their choice to love our brand." The partnership is also a testament to the brand's resilience and community focus. “We’re still here because a lot of our revenue comes directly from our consumers. We've got a very strong relationship with our consumers.”
Availability
Four Pillars Wild Isle Gin: Available only in Australia via Four Pillars venues, online, and selected airports. We say it would be worth the flight to just to try it.
Orange and Manuka Honey Island Gin: Available in New Zealand exclusively via islandgin.com and the Rocks bottle store on Great Barrier Island. In Australia, it is available at Four Pillars’ Healesville Distillery, Surry Hills Lab, and online.
Awards & Accolades
Island Gin
Best London Dry, NZ - World Gin Awards 2025
Best Navy Strength, NZ - World Gin Awards 2024
Platinum - SIP Awards USA 2024
Double Gold - San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2022
Innovation Award - NZ Spirits Awards 2020
Four Pillars Gin
International Gin Producer of the Year (2019, 2020, 2023) - IWSC
Green Spirit Initiative Award (2022) - IWSC